Igiaba Scego

> In Somali, *jirro* means "illness"—literally so. (...) But for us, *jirro* is a vaster word. It speaks of our wounds, our pain, our post-traumatic, post-war stress. *Jirro* is our broken heart. Our life in precarious balance between hell and the present. This book speaks of this illness, both physical and spiritual, searing and nostalgic; and it does so through an autobiographical lens, construc

The novel is part of a trilogy that includes two other books: *Oltre Babilonia* from 2008 and *Adua* > from 2015 (reviews are available on this site). And indeed we find the same theme: the Black woman lives in a world of violence and abuse, because she is a woman and because she is Black. Taking up the narrative framework of *Adua* > the author pursues two parallel stories: that of Lafanu Brow

The publisher presents the book as a novel with two voices, “that of a father and a daughter.” This summary is certainly accurate. Adua fled Somalia to escape an authoritarian father and to fulfill a dream: to work in cinema and become a famous actress. In reality, she managed to make only one film—a pornographic one. Twenty years later, she finds herself a mature woman, an “Old Lira,” as the

The novel is a skein of narratives, set across different times and environments, yet traceable back to two family stories. Mar is the daughter of Miranda, an Argentine woman, and a Somali father she never knew. Zuhra is Somali, the daughter of Maryam and likewise of an unknown father. They grew up and live in Rome and are Italian, yet neither knows what her mother tongue truly is, both feeling